differs, also, in neighbouring villages. For miles around, the clocks
strike independently, instead of in chorus, so that it is ten at the
station, when it is ten minutes to, in our hotel; a quarter to ten,
inside the local _bijoutier’s_—but all hours within. When these clocks
have done striking, the church clock starts; there is no corroboration,
no unanimity. However... who cares, who worries? It is “almost” eleven;
“about” twelve; a “little past” four; that suffices. We are late, or
we are early. We get accustomed to being strangely in three places
at the very same hour. Should a friend be pressed we can say: “That
clock is fast”; if he weary us, we need not hesitate to declare it
slow. And watches vary; time is of no moment, in Moret. Farther still
from Fontainebleau, in the village of Grez, the two or three hundred
inhabitants rely chiefly on the Curé for the hour. He alone controls the
church clock; but he, an irascible old gentleman, often quarrels with the
Mayor: and on these occasions stops the clock immediately, revengefully.
Once the quarrel lasted three whole months: for three whole months the
hands of the clock remained stationary. The Mayor protested: but the
Curé ignored him. When at last the Mayor withdrew his objection to the
point at issue, the Curé allowed the clock to go again. And now, if ever
the Mayor and the Curé disagree, the Curé stops the clock, the Mayor
protests, the Curé ignores him: and Grez has no church clock to tell the
time until the unhappy Mayor gives in.
Fortunately for us in Moret, the Mayor and Curé are friends. We depend
more or less on the Curé’s clock—most dilapidated of dials—whose solemn
summons at ten on Sunday bids us attend High Mass; whose brisker chimes
at the same hour on Tuesday set us hastening towards the market. Indeed,
in our hotel, disdainful of its dubious timepiece, we wait for the
ten strokes and after counting them join the villagers outside: knots
of villagers, rows of villagers, solitary villagers, but all of them
fresh, immaculate. Each woman wears a print dress, or a print skirt
and camisole, a spotted handkerchief tied in a knot at the top of her
head. Each man has drawn on a clean cotton shirt and his newest coat,
or a blouse; his tie invariably is bright. Each girl is clad lightly,
charmingly, and has becomingly arranged her hair. As for us... well, we
do not seem shabby beside a painter, a Parisian in “le boating” costume:
our scarf is as silken as theirs, our waistcoat is equally white and
_piqué_, but our cane is undoubtedly handsomer, and we think we dangle it
more elegantly.
Over the cobble-stones, avoiding the _ruisseau_, we go—smoking and
chatting—the peasants swinging their baskets, the girls giving a last
touch to their hair—an amazing spectacle.
At the end of the narrow street—the “Grande Rue,” no less!—is installed
the first market-woman, with a vast basket of vegetables. And she, a
wizened old thing, wrinkled and bent in half, appears to be reflecting
over her poor potatoes, her shabby cauliflowers. Still, she refuses to
bargain. She has but one price, and she sniffs when a would-be customer
turns over her wares, inspecting them; and sniffs again when she is told
that they are “bien médiocres et bien chères.” So she sells nothing:
falls into reflection again, quite forgets the would-be customer,
who, turning up the next street, faces a double row of market-people
established on either kerbstone, and thus comes upon the chiefest
commerce.
All Moret is present, all Moret is bargaining and buying, and all
the market-people are seamed with wrinkles, browned, bent; and all
of them wear blouses or camisoles or print dresses, handkerchiefs or
peaked caps—old, old people all of them; at all events seemingly old;
weather-beaten, of the earth. Each has his or her basket, so that there
are two uninterrupted lines of baskets, of little piles of paper, of
measuring utensils. Every vegetable is available, every fruit. There is
crying, croaking, quarrelling; there is laughter, the chink of sous.
Above the din one hears:
“Trois sous, Madame.”
“Non, Madame, deux sous.”
And: “Regardez ces raisins.”
“Voyez, voyez, les melons.”
And always: “Cinq sous, Madame.”
“Non, Madame, trois sous.... Sous, sous, sous.”
Slowly we progress, meet the _patronne_ of our hotel, the postman, the
_garde champêtre_, the barber and, all of a sudden, a bevy of fair
Americans, daintily dressed, who inhabit a “finishing” school near by. In
the village it is hinted that they are heiresses, all of them. Certainly
their clothes are rich, but they carry paper bags of grapes, and eat the
grapes, and dawdle... just like Mesdemoiselles Jeanne and Marie, village
girls who “do washing” on the river bank every other day of the week.
Also, they utter little cries:
“Isn’t that old woman the funniest thing that’s ever happened!”
And: “My! Isn’t it all too quaint!”
Here a foreigner sketches. Farther on, by the side of the church, a
painter has established his easel; next him, stands a group of village
women who have already done their shopping and bear their spoil. And they
compare their purchases, gesticulating over this cauliflower, that salad;
and soon we hear much about a certain Madame Morin who has gone home
furious because Madame Petilleau carried off an amazing melon she had her
eye on... just by a minute. But Madame Morin is always like that; Madame
Morin would flush, lose her temper, over a single bean.
Now stalls rise—stalls of ribbons and jewellery, stalls of cheeses,
stalls of sheets, curtains, all stuffs. And the stuffs are held up to the
sun and considered in the shade, and compared with a complexion and wound
round a waist, so that we hear:
“Ça vous va bien.”
And: “Je trouve que c’est trop clair.”
And, of course: “Trois francs, Madame.”
“No, Madame, deux francs... francs, francs, francs.”
Baskets become veritable burdens. Gesticulations grow wilder, the cries
louder, the exchange of francs and sous quicker and quicker. Everyone has
vegetables and fruits; many have coloured stuffs.
To and fro go the _patronne_ of our hotel, the postman, the _garde
champêtre_, the barber, the Americans. To and fro go the village
girls—but pause all at once before a ragged fellow whose eyes are
crossed, whose face is unshaven, whose dirty hands clasp an accordion.
The church clock strikes eleven. But above all these sounds rises
suddenly and discordantly the voice of the man with the accordion. As
he sings he leers. The village girls titter. To them, impudently and
grotesquely, he addresses his eternal refrain:
“Tu sais bien que je t’ai-ai-me.”
Still we linger; soon we admire a group of women and children whose
home is on the barges of the river bank. Barefoot, with shining black
eyes and black hair, bright shawls and handkerchiefs, they add to
the picturesqueness of the spectacle as they wander to and fro with
wicker-work wares. A graceful English girl presents the children with
grapes, and the children smile, displaying the whitest teeth. The women
pounce upon stray slips of salad, broken atoms of cauliflower, and are
watched suspiciously by the market-people. The foreigner sketches them;
the painter evidently intends to include them in his scene—and we, also
fascinated, would follow them, were we not tempted to listen to a noisy
fellow who, flourishing a scrap of soap, boasts that it will blot out
every stain.
How simple, how easy is it to stain your coat, he cries; then proceeds to
point out stains on various coats. Fear not, however. Be not cast down.
_He_ is here, he, the enemy of stains—_he_ with “The Miraculous Tablet.”
And the “Miraculous Tablet” is held on high and flourished to and fro,
ready to render old clothes new, and soiled hats fresh, in exchange for
two vulgar sous.
“Seize this surprising opportunity,” shouts the man. “Take out your
stains, all of you. The Miraculous Tablet will away with them all...
except stains on your conscience. I swear it, and I am honest.”
And then, continuing, he announces that the “Miraculous Tablet” has made
him famous throughout the land; that clients return to him in thousands
to express their gratitude; that a certain mother once shed tears of
joy when he took an ink-stain out of her little boy’s white suit; that
only yesterday, in Orleans, the inhabitants cheered and cheered him and,
rushing forward, begged leave to shake his hand. “And,” he concludes,
“believe me, ladies and gentlemen, I had not hands enough.”
Suddenly a tambourine sounds, and up the street come a man and a woman
with a dancing bear, another woman with a monkey. The monkey screams,
the bear on its hind legs bobs up and down, up and down, and the man
encourages him gruffly and the woman shakes the tambourine.
Of course a crowd assembles, and of course cries go up. Cries rise
everywhere: from the market-place, from the crowd, from the enemy of
stains, from the man with the accordion, from the group around the bear;
all cries, the strangest cries, all languages also—English, French, many
a patois, “bargee,” the unknown tongue of the almost black people with
the bear—and all accents.
Then several nuns issue forth from church and pause for a moment. The
Curé appears. A “Savoyard” with statues—as white as his statues, for his
clothes are white and his face is covered with chalk-dust—approaches.
And all these different people, in all their different costumes, with
different accents and different gestures, mingle together, elbow one
another, and all around them are the stalls of bright stuffs, the vast
baskets of vegetables and fresh fruits. In the background—grey and
quaint—stands the church.
However, time is flying and luncheon hour is near. The purchases have
to be borne home, washed, prepared, and so the inhabitants of Moret
raise their baskets, exchange adieux. Off starts the _patronne_ of
our hotel; off go the postman, the _garde champêtre_, the barber and
the fair Americans—still eating grapes—to their “finishing” school.
The village girls disperse, and here and there the market-people are
already dislodging their baskets, counting up sous. Once again we hear
of the hot-tempered Madame Morin, the triumphant Madame Petilleau. Other
familiar sounds reach us as we near the end of the street: “This, then,
is the Miraculous Tablet... and only yesterday in Orleans...” and for the
last time, “Cinq sous, Madame,” “Non, Madame, trois sous,” and the hour
being told by the church.
In the far distance, the bear is evidently dancing, for we faintly
hear the tambourine. But his audience must now be small: before us, up
the Grande Rue, moves a slow procession of men and women with baskets,
sometimes two baskets to each person.
Still, the first market-woman does not appear to have provided them with
their spoil. She alone has done no business, and sits, wizened and bent
in half, over her shabby cauliflowers, her poor potatoes. Occasionally
she sniffs.
But her sniff develops into a snort, when the cross-eyed, unshaven fellow
with the accordion slouches up and, pausing for a moment, winks ... a
fearful wink... leers, addresses her impudently and grotesquely with his
eternal refrain:
“Tu sais bien que je t’ai-ai-me.”
IV
BOURGEOISIE
1. M. DURAND AT MARIE-LE-BOIS
A French friend, M. Durand, thus writes to me:
“To-morrow morning at 11.47 my wife, myself, the three children
and our deaf old servant Amélie, all leave for Marie-le-Bois;
and to-morrow night, whilst you, _mon cher ami_, are eating the
rosbif and drinking the pale ale of _la vieille Angleterre_,
the Durand family will be dining off radishes, sardines,
chicken, and cool salad, in the garden of the Villa des Roses.
“I have taken the villa for a month—our holiday. The Duvals and
the Duponts occupy villas near by; and we shall play croquet
together, and be amiable and happy. I, your stout friend, _le
gros_ Durand, will wear white shoes and no waistcoat, and I
shall also smoke many pipes and enjoy long siestas under my own
tree.” (What an idyllic picture—the large citizen Durand asleep
in a vast cane chair, under a tree!)
“But to-day, _mon vieux_, what anxiety, what chaos, what
despair, in our Paris home! We are distracted, we are in
peril of losing our reason, so terrible, so sinister is the
work of moving to Marie-le-Bois. The packing, the labelling,
the ordering of the railway omnibus (it is engaged for ten
o’clock precisely, but will it—O harassing question—arrive in
time?), the emotion of the children, the ferocity of my wife,
the deafness of superannuated Amélie—all these miseries have
left me as weak as an old cat. You, who have travelled, will
appreciate the agony of the situation. No more can I say, for I
hear my wife crying: ‘Hippolyte, Hippolyte, what are you doing?
You must be mad to write letters in such a crisis.’
“Adieu, therefore. Here, very cordially, are the two hands of,
“GEORGES AUGUSTE HIPPOLYTE DURAND.”
Excellent, simple M. Durand! From his letter one would suppose that he
is about to make the long journey from Paris to the Pyrenees; and that
his luggage is proportionately considerable and elaborate. But, as a
matter of fact, Marie-le-Bois lies humbly on the outskirts of Paris. A
slow train from the St Lazare Station covers the distance in thirty-five
minutes. And once arrived there, one clearly perceives, from the top of
a small hill, the Sacré Cœur, the dome of the Panthéon, the sightseers
(almost their Baedekers) on the Triumphal Arch! Only five and thirty
minutes distant from Paris—and yet Madame Durand is “ferocious,” her
husband is as “weak as an old cat,” and the omnibus has been ordered one
hour and forty-seven minutes in advance, to drive over the mile that
separates M. Durand’s dim, musty little flat from the station!
Luggage? As the Villa des Roses is let furnished, only wearing apparel
and little particular comforts are required, and so the Durand luggage
consists of no more than a shabby large trunk, two dilapidated valises,
a bundle, and a collection of sticks, umbrellas, spades for the children
and a fishing-rod for their father.
Why spades? There is no sand at Marie-le-Bois. Why that fishing-rod? Not
a river floweth within miles and miles of the Villa des Roses. And it
must furthermore be revealed that the “wood” of Marie-le-Bois consists in
reality of a few acres of shabby bushes, dead grass and gaunt trees; that
the villa itself is a hideous, gritty little structure, rendered all the
more uninviting by what the estate agent calls an “ornamental” turret,
and that never a rose (never even a common sunflower) has bloomed in the
scrap of waste ground joyously designated by M. Durand a “garden.”
No matter; M. Durand, a simple, small bourgeois, is happy, his good wife
rejoices, the three children run wild in the hot, dusty roads, deaf old
Amélie is to be heard singing in a feeble, cracked voice in the kitchen;
and the Duvals and the Duponts—also of the small bourgeoisie—are equally
happy and merry in the equally hideous and gritty villas named “My
Pleasure” and “My Repose.”
Between them they have hired a rough, bumpy field, in which they play
croquet for hours at a time—the ladies in cotton wrappers and the
gentlemen in their shirt-sleeves. But not enough mallets to go round and
constant confusion as to whose turn it is to play.
“It is Durand’s turn,” says Dupont.
“No, it is Madame Durand’s,” states M. Duval.
“No, it is my turn—I haven’t played for twenty minutes,” protests the
shrill voice of little Marie Dupont.
“Apparently it is somebody’s turn,” says M. Durand ironically.
And then do the three gentlemen respectively declare that the “situation”
is “extraordinary” and “abominable” and—yes, “sinister”; and then,
also, do the three wives proclaim their lords “egoists” and—Oh dear
me—“imbeciles,” and then (profiting by the dispute) do the many children
of the Duponts and the Durands and Duvals kick about the balls, and hop
over (or dislodge) the hoops, and (when reprimanded) burst into tears.
“It’s mad,” cries M. Durand.
“Auguste, you disgust me,” says Madame Dupont to her husband.
“Mamma, Henri Durand has pulled my hair,” sobs little Germaine Duval.
At length on goes the game. But ten minutes later the same confusion, the
same cries: “It’s my turn,” and “No, it is the turn of Madame Dupont,”
and “I’ve only played once in the last hour,” and “The situation is
becoming more and more sinister.”
Still, in the scraps of garden of the three villas there is peace.
The gentlemen doze a great deal under their respective, their “own”
anæmic trees. Flies buzz about them—but, as M. Durand observes, they
are “country flies,” and therefore “innocent.” In the late afternoon M.
Durand puts on his glasses, opens his _Petit Parisien_ and says: “Let
us hear what is happening in Paris.” As a matter of fact, M. Durand can
almost hear what is happening in Paris from his chair; but he studies
his paper deeply and gives vent to exclamations of “Ah!” and “That dear,
extraordinary Paris—always excited, never tranquil!” as though he were an
exile in the remotest of foreign lands.
As for M. Dupont, he is of the opinion that although newspapers are out
of place in the country, “still a good citizen should keep in touch
with affairs.” And says M. Duval: “A Parisian, wherever he be, should
never altogether forget that he is a Parisian. Therefore it is his
duty—I speak, of course, figuratively—to keep one eye on the capital.”
Figuratively, indeed! M. Duval has only to mount upon his chair to behold
Paris with both eyes, most clearly, most vividly.
And now night-time, and a lamp burning on a table in the garden of the
Villa des Roses, and around the table, covered with coffee cups, the
Durands and the Duponts and the Duvals. Happily they lie back in their
chairs. Now and again the peevish, spiteful hum of the mosquito. Odd
green insects dash themselves against the glass of the lamp.
“The air of the country, there is nothing like it; it is exquisite,
sublime,” says M. Durand rapturously. “Breathe it in, my friends, breathe
it in, with all your might.”
“Durand is right,” assents M. Dupont. “Let us not speak; let us only
breathe.”
“Are we ready?” inquires M. Duval.
And the three M. D.’s and the three Madame D.’s, lying back in their
chairs, breathe and breathe.
2. PENSION DE FAMILLE. THE BEAUTIFUL MADEMOISELLE MARIE, WHO LOVED
GAMBETTA
As a consequence of the death, in her ninety-third year, of Mademoiselle
Marie Rosalie Losset, many a successful French barrister, politician and
_littérateur_ is recalling the early, struggling days of the past. He
sees the Rue des Poitevins, a narrow little street in the heart of the
Latin Quarter. He remembers the board over one of its doorways: “Pension
Laveur. Cuisine Bourgeoise. Prix modérés.” He can almost smell the strong
evening odour of cabbage and onion soup that assailed him in the dim
entrance hall when he returned to the boarding-house exhausted, perhaps
depressed from his lectures at the Sorbonne, his studies in the medicine
schools, his first visits to the Law Courts.
As I am nothing of a greybeard, I am only able to write of Mademoiselle
Marie Rosalie Losset and of the _pension de famille_ in the Rue des
Poitevins at second hand. It was as far back as 1838 that Mademoiselle
Marie, then a _jeune fille_ of eighteen, came up to Paris from tranquil,
beautiful Savoy to help her sister and brother-in-law, M. and Madame
Laveur, to conduct their new boarding-house. Tall, graceful, masses
of golden hair—the “Greek Statue,” the great Gambetta called her, and
the name clung. I must be excused from stating names and events in
chronological order—so much has happened since the year 1840! But I
can give the precise terms of the _pension_: five or six francs a day
for full board, including white or red wine. Also I am able to record
that whereas the sister and brother-in-law, M. and Madame Laveur,
were suspicious, severe and close-fisted, Mademoiselle Marie Rosalie
Losset—“Mademoiselle Marie” for short—was all gaiety and generosity, and
sympathised with the struggles, disappointments and financial ennuis of
the boarders.
Fortunately for the latter it was Mademoiselle Marie who made up the
bills and had charge of the cash-box; the Laveurs occupied themselves
exclusively with the kitchen and the household arrangements. Inevitably,
the student boarders lost their hearts to the “Greek Statue”; but she
laughed at their gallantry, and gaily wanted to know how on earth they
could keep a wife when they couldn’t pay their own way. Bill of M. Paul
a month and thirteen days overdue. Laundry account of M. Pierre five
weeks in arrears, and the washerwoman making persistent “inquiries.” The
washing-basin of M. Jacques, broken an eternity ago, still standing
against him in the boarding-house ledger. And yet they wanted to marry
her, all of them—the foolish sentimentalists, the dear, simple imbeciles!
No, no; she would try to keep the Laveurs in ignorance of the unpaid
bills; she would sew buttons on to M. Paul’s shabby coat, and blot out
the stains from M. Pierre’s; she would say no more of the washing-basin;
she would reassure the angry _blanchisseuse_; she would, in a word,
do everything for the student boarders except marry them. “Tant pis,”
cried the latter dramatically, “you have broken my heart. I shall never
do anything in this world. You have ruined me!” Replied the radiant
Savoyarde: “Nonsense! Work hard, and make a name for yourself. And when
you are famous come and see me, and I promise not to remind you of the
washerwoman, or the basin, or your faded old coat.”
Their studies finished, away from the narrow little Rue des Poitevins
went the “heartbroken” boarders to make a “name for themselves.” Not
so heartbroken but that they became either heroic or distinguished
“citizens” of France. At the end of the plain, bourgeois dinner
Mademoiselle Marie came to Gambetta’s table for dessert, and, amidst a
cracking of nuts and the drinking of sour wine, the future great and
noble Gambetta tempestuously held forth. A Republic for France was his
cry. How the glasses danced as he thumped with his fist on the table!
What cheers from the boarders; what a blush and a flush on the face of
the “Greek Statue”! Gambetta stirred that sombre, musty boarding-house
as later he roused the whole of France with his eloquence, enthusiasm,
his glorious patriotism. His Republican programme was first conceived,
his famous social battle-cry—“Le Cléricalisme, voilà l’ennemi”—was first
sounded in that _pension_ of the narrow, obscure Rue des Poitevins.
Emotion, we may be sure, of the “Greek Statue” whilst her hero was
away with the Army of the Loire. Gloom and hunger in the Pension
Laveur during the Siege of Paris; never a sniff of the strong onion
soup. Years later—1881—Gambetta Prime Minister, accession of “le Grand
Ministère,”—and joy and pride of the “Greek Statue.” But downfall of the
“Grand Ministère” after only two months’ power, and death of Gambetta in
the following year—and then, yes, then, so, at least, I surmise, grief
and tears of the Savoyarde, the “Greek Statue,” now become grey-headed,
now a sexagenarian, now known to her boarders as “Tante Marie.”
So have we arrived at the twilight of the once radiant Savoyarde’s
career. She is sixty, and the golden hair has gone grey, and familiarly
and affectionately she is known amongst her boarders as “Auntie.”
Still, however, does she sew on the missing buttons of the _jeunesse_
of the Latin Quarter, and allow the _pension_ bills to stand over, and
overlook the matter of broken washing-basins, and pacify the angry
_blanchisseuse_, and encourage her struggling boarders with the old
words of long ago: “Work hard, and make a name for yourself, and come
and tell me of your fame....” Years roll on—and “Tante Marie” becomes
deaf and frail, and holds a hand to her ear when the _pensionnaires_
of the past return to the Rue des Poitevins—elderly, many of them
wealthy and distinguished—and pay her homage, and thank her emotionally
for her kindnesses, and leave behind them autographed photographs
bearing, amongst many other signatures, the names of Alphonse Daudet,
François Coppée, Waldeck-Rousseau (Gambetta’s disciple), Reclus, the
great physician, Millerand (ex-Minister of War), Pichon, the actual
French Foreign Secretary, and a former President of the Republic, Émile
Loubet.... More years roll by and “Tante Marie” becomes bent, shaky and
wizened—a nonagenarian. Against her will, she is removed from the sombre,
musty old Balzacian _pension_ to a small, modern, electric-lighted
apartment—where she dies. Dies, in spite of her beauty, brilliancy,
irresistibility, a spinster. Dies with the admission: “It was Gambetta I
loved. Impossible, of course. But he called me a Greek Statue!”
3. PENSION DE FAMILLE. FRENCH AND PIANO LESSONS. LES SAINTES FILLES,
MESDEMOISELLES PÉRIVIER
Three years have elapsed since Henri Rochette, the dashing young French
financier with the handsome black beard, fell with a crash.
“Le Krach de Rochette. Arrest of the Financier. Millions of Losses. Ruin
of Small Investors,” yelled the _camelots_ on the boulevards. It was
another _affaire_, a gigantic swindle reminiscent of Panama, in that the
greater part of the victims were small, thrifty people, who now stood in
thousands outside Rochette’s closed, darkened offices, weeping, raging,
pathetically or passionately demanding the return of their savings.
“That Rochette, he came from nowhere—how did he manage it?” asked the
prudent bourgeois, who had steeled himself against Rochette’s alluring,
rattling circulars.